Whistler's Duncan Munro first in Rundle's Revenge ultra

After hearing about the race through friends, Whistler's Duncan Munro took a detour from training for his first Ironman this weekend to race in The North Face Rundle's Revenge.

There were lots of categories available, but Munro elected to go the full distance. He biked eight laps of a 12.5 km course on Saturday for 100 km in total, then ran four laps of the same course the next day.

"I would compare it to riding the Flank and Industrial Disease," he said of the bike leg. "There was a little bit of fire road, maybe two or three kilometres, and the rest was off-camber with roots, and it was soaking wet. I didn't bring my iPod so I was doing math in my head, and figured out that the 400 metres of elevation gain in eight laps was 3,200 metres of elevation from start to finish. That's pretty crazy, but it was really fun."

Munro said it was tough to gauge how you were doing because some riders were going 50 km, some 25 km and others 12.5 kms. Eventually there were just four riders on the course and Munro finished third in seven hours, 56 minutes and six seconds.

Because he's been training for Ironman he said the distance wasn't that bad although sometimes it felt like he was riding a jackhammer the entire way.

He also felt surprisingly good the next morning for the trail run, despite the rain and cold. He was 1:03:34 back of North Vancouver's Andy Traslin at that point.

He finished the 50 km trail run in 5:48:23, winning the Iron Donkey Open Men's competition - one of only two men to attempt and finish both ultra distances.

Munro said the race is something that could be brought to Whistler.

"There were lots of categories and you could do as much or as little as you wanted," he said. "You could race one day or both, and if you did both you could win a Donkey award. They had relays as well, so it appeals to a lot of demographics. It's something we could easily do in Whistler."

Munro gave trainer Christine Suter credit for setting up his program for the Ironman and Rundle's Revenge for his strong finish. Other than the 5 Peaks races, he's not doing any other events leading up to Ironman Canada. It will be his first time doing that race.